THE Daily Mail has a question: “Where have they gone? Defeated X Factor finalist Nicholas McDonald jets home to Scotland… and finds his army of fans has vanished.”

Poof! Vanished.

Only a week ago, he arrived home by helicopter and was met by hordes of screaming X Factor fans. But on Tuesday, it was a very different story for teenager Nicholas McDonald after he lost out in the talent show final on Sunday. The 17-year-old jetted in to Glasgow Airport, where he signed only a couple of autographs before his uneventful journey home to Motherwell, Lanarkshire.